A grieving film director in Rio - the nameless narrator - is visited by a Carnival dancer who leaves him with a box full of precious gems. A few days later, the dancer is dead, a man in a raincoat lurks outside the director's door, and a mysterious German producer surfaces with an irresistible offer: to make a film based on a story by the director's favorite author, the great Russian writer Isaac Babel. From this elemental framework the adventure begins.